District of Sant Andreu

The Heart of the City

Most of the District of Sant Andreu is hidden behind the large blocks of flats that you see on your left as you drive into Barcelona along La Meridiana main road, and you might be forgiven for thinking that what lies behind them is just another part of the urban sprawl on the outskirts of the big city.

However, the buildings conceal a district with a fierce sense of its own history and
identity that sees itself as something quite separate from the rest of
Barcelona.

The district's centre is Sant Andreu de Palomar, which whilst classified as a
neighbourhood by the City Council, woe betide you if you refer it as
anything less than a town or village when speaking to the locals.

This is the historic centre
of a municipality of the same name, which in the 19th century covered
an area as big as Barcelona itself, comprising what are now the districts
of Sant Andreu and Nou Barris.

Further away from town, you will
find the working class neighbourhood of Trinitat Vella trapped between
La Meridiana and the River Besòs.

Also hugging the banks of the river are the slightly isolated Baró de Viver and Bon Pastor neighbourhoods.

Closer
to town, we have La Sagrera, which was once part of Sant Martí, El Congrés i Els
Indians on the Nou Barris side of La Meridiana and Navas.

La Trinitat Vella

Separated from the rest of the district by the Ronda de Dalt and the Nus de la Trinitat, a small scale spaguetti junction that connects all the motorways and rings roads to the north of Barcelona, Trinitat Vella was jerry-built in the early 1950s to house immigrants arriving in Barcelona from the rest of Spain.

It still has a large immigrant population and as it was also home to the city's juvenile prison until recently, the neighbourhood doesn't have a great reputation.

Local facilities have greatly improved in recent years, though, and the area has a very strong sense of community but to be honest, it is a neighbourhood that is difficult to enthuse about..

Baró de Viver

The tiny Baró de Viver neighbourhood was originally a Cases Barates, literally cheap Housing, Estate built at the end of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera in 1929 to house new arrivals from other parts of Spain.

The Cases Barates have since been demolished and replaced with modern flats and Baró de Viver retains its working class atmosphere.

El Congrés i Els Indians

El Congrés i Els Indians are two neighbourhoods both located on the other side of La Meridiana above La Sagrera.

El Congrés comprises standard inner city blocks and was built to house Spanish immigrant families as a commemoration of a Catholic congress held in Barcelona in 1953, which with 300,000 attendees was one of the most important religious events of its day.

The other part of the neighbourhood, Els Indians was built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by rich Barcelonans who had made their fortunes in the Americas.

However, very few fine houses remain and it is difficult to distinguish from El Congrés.

Navas

Although it has always been part of Sant Andreu de Palomar, Navas feels much more akin to Clot to me, perhaps because my main reason for passing through is to turn into Carrer Mallorca and cross La Meridiana on my way to the Eixample.

The neighbourhood is now very 'inner city' but began life as the Cases del Gobernador Housing Project in the 1950s.

It has two main squares - Plaça d'Islandia and Plaça Ferran Reyes with its modern Sant Joan Bosco parish church.

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